


Enjoying the Sun

by prepare4trouble



Series: Little By Little [38]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Bad Weather, Denial, Ezra closes his eyes, Force Signatures, Gen, Hobbie is a Good Friend, Self-Deceit, Talking About Stuff, but only because it's dusty, dust storm, or because he has a hangover, while simultaneously avoiding the subject
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 19:50:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12824838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble
Summary: Some windy weather kicks up clouds of dust, and that is theonlyreason why Ezra is standing there with his eyes closed.  Honest.





	Enjoying the Sun

It was never  _cold_  on Atollon.  At least, not so far.  They hadn’t actually been on the planet that long – less than a standard year – and Ezra had had more important things on his mind during that time than the weather.  He wasn’t sure how many times, in any, the planet had rotated around its sun since they had arrived.   For all he knew, they just hadn’t seen a winter yet, and were facing months of ice and snow when it finally came.

He hoped not.

Lothal’s mostly temperate climate had spoiled him, he supposed.  Although the temperature on his homeworld fluctuated with the seasons, it had rarely risen or dropped far enough to put him in any danger, even when he had been sleeping on the streets.  As a result, he didn’t do well with extremes.  He could cope, he would just prefer not to have to.

Same as with a lot of things, he supposed.

A few days earlier, the wind on the base had dropped to almost nothing, and had stayed that way, leaving the air smelling stale and used.  Finally, today, it had returned.  A strong, erratic wind gusted over the base, seeming to vary its speed and direction every few minutes, dropping to nothing at all, before returning unexpectedly.  It might have been a welcome break from the heat, if not for the clouds of dust, grit, and sand that each spiralling gust whipped up from the ground.

Despite that, the wind brought with it a fresher scent to the air.  It chased away the lingering odor of spaceship fuel that had hung over the base, and Ezra felt as though he could breathe easily again.

Well, when breathing didn’t mean inhaling a dust cloud, of course.

As though that thought had summoned it, he felt the telltale movement of air that signaled the beginnings of another gust.  He raised an arm, bending his elbow to cover his nose and mouth.  He held his breath, turned away from the direction of the wind, and screwed his eyes tightly closed to protect them against the onslaught.  

Tiny rock fragments and sand pelted his skin and clothing, and caught in his hair.  When it was over, he quickly brushed his fingers over the worst affected areas, sweeping away the worst of the grit.  He took extra care with the delicate skin around his eyes, not wanting to leave any sand anywhere where it might fall into his eye.  The last thing he needed right now was a trip to Noisi to get it rinsed out.

He supposed that was probably going to be a common complaint today, and he couldn’t help but imagine the droid’s glee as he dealt with a queue of people and their temporary eye complaints.  It didn’t sound like Ezra’s idea of a good time.

He kept his eyes closed for now.  The wind was unpredictable, and all he was doing was standing around, so not seeing wasn’t a  _major_  problem.  It was a reasonable temporary sacrifice in order to avoid Noisi; he was overdue for an appointment, and if he turned up with an eyeful of sand, he’d end up with the followup exam he had been avoiding,  _and_  a lecture from Noisi.  And the eyeful of sand too.  He could cope; it wasn’t like there was anything he needed to look at right now anyway.  

Well, apart from  _everything_ , of course, but – for now at least – it would all still be there when he opened his eyes again.

No, it would always still be there.  Just like Kanan had told him once, the world wouldn’t be gone, he just needed to find a new way to see it.

The light of the sun was visible through the thin skin of his eyelids, and that helped.  There was no blindfold preventing him from seeing, blocking out the light and making him feel trapped.  Even with his eyes closed, he could still see  _something_ , even if all he could see was a reassurance.

The world was still there.  Everything would  _always_  still be there.

He could still feel the wall at his back, and hear the wind whistling between the buildings that made up the base.  He could smell cooking drifting on the air from the nearby commissary; he couldn’t identify what it was, but it made his stomach growl with a hunger that he hadn’t noticed until now.  He could feel, if not recognize, the Force signatures of the people around him.  He could hear their footsteps on the ground and snippets of their conversation fading in and out of earshot as they passed, and he could smell hints of perfumed soap and shampoo.

The sun was warm on the side of his face.  He turned, angling his face upward as though he were simply soaking up a little of the heat.  If anybody asked, that was what he was doing.  Enjoying the sun, with his eyes closed to avoid the dust; nothing else.

Another gust of wind rushed through the gap between the buildings.  It whipped up a cloud of dust from a completely different direction to the last time.  Ezra held his breath again, and remained completely still.  The roar of the wind rushing past his ears drowned out most of the ambient sound, and reduced the world around him still further.  

It dropped again suddenly, disappearing to almost nothing.  Ezra stayed where he was, eyes still closed to protect himself from the dust, and  _not for any other reason_ , while the people around him moved on, getting on with their day.

He wondered how he looked to them; whether they had noticed what he was doing, whether they even really noticed him at all.  He couldn’t identify them right now, but that was okay; he wasn’t trying to.  He wasn’t trying to do anything other than keep the dust out of his eyes and enjoy the sunshine.  

But  _while_  he was doing that, there wouldn’t be any harm in paying a little attention to what was happening around him.  Tentatively, he expanded his awareness outward.  Not with the Force, not this time; until Kanan taught him something that he would be able to use, trying it led only to frustration, and to an all-encompassing sense of dread; a certainty that he would never be good enough.

That was the kind of thing that would ruin his enjoyment of the sun, which was  _all_  he was really doing right now.

He could still feel the Force though, just as he always had.  It was like background noise; something that he barely even noticed unless he paid attention, but it still colored his impression of the world around him, telling him things that he wouldn’t otherwise have known, often without him even realizing.  The Force had always been with him, even before he had known what it was, or that it existed at all; it had been there, helping him, telling him what he needed to know in order to survive.  In many ways, the Force was the one constant in his life.

The people moving around past him were a haze of Force signatures.  He didn’t recognize any of them, but some were more familiar than others.  He ignored them for now; he didn’t know how to interpret them, and so they weren’t important.

There were so  _many_ , though.  Even if he could tell one from another, know who was who as they passed him in the street — could Kanan do that? Did he know everybody in that way? — surely there were too many for him to ever keep track of.  Even in this relatively quiet area, it felt impossible.  Even without the added difficulty of trying to work out who was who, he couldn’t tell what was going on around him.

How many of these people, he wondered, would he recognize if he just opened his eyes? Would the Force signature that felt familiar, plus the slight scent of engine oil covered by soap, add up to someone he knew? Or was it just someone he had seen around the base? What about the one that he didn’t think he recognized at all, would that turn out to be one of his best friends?

It might have been frustrating, if he had actually been trying to work this stuff out.  Luckily, all he was doing was enjoying the sun, and trying not to get an eyeful of dust.

As though on cue, another gust of wind rushed around him.  Anticipating it the instant the breeze touched him, Ezra clamped his lips closed and held his breath again, until it had passed.  Not far away, one of those Force signatures hadn’t had as much forethought, and Ezra heard a sharp, hissing, intake of breath as the sand or dust hit someone in the face, followed by coughing as their gasp inhaled more.  Ezra didn’t laugh, mostly because the wind was still blowing, and he didn’t want to make the same mistake.

Keeping his attention on that one person, he sensed mild irritation.  The Force signature moved a little closer to him, not like the others that were walking past him, this one was heading directly toward him.  Or so he thought.  Or maybe it was his imagination making things up because he was concentrating on that person, while the others he had just been noticing passively.

He listened.  Footsteps were definitely moving closer to him.  They stopped, as did the Force presence, right next to him, close enough that he could hear the other person’s breathing.  It took a lot of willpower not to open his eyes.  If they asked, he was enjoying the sun, that was all.  Well, and avoiding the dust.  It had  _nothing_  to do with anything else.

He wondered who it was.

They had come over to him, so they probably knew him, and that meant he should be able to work it out.  If he could work out who they were, he could greet them by name.  Assuming they had noticed that he hadn’t seen them, that was going to be pretty impressive.  Maybe even as impressive as the first time he’d seen Kanan do it.  Ezra closed his eyes a little tighter, determined not to give in to the urge to cheat.

Not that it would be cheating, all he was really doing was enjoying the sun.

The Force signature felt familiar enough, but unfortunately, he wasn’t going to be able to work it out fast enough to turn in their direction, eyes closed, and greet them by name.  Not yet.  Instead, he breathed in slowly, careful not to be obvious about it.  The person didn’t have any noticeable scent.  That didn’t tell him much, it wasn’t a thing that he tended to notice, not unless a smell was particularly strong or unpleasant, and if that was the case, he would have told them to get in the fresher, or stopped hanging around with them long ago.

His unknown companion didn’t say anything.  Maybe he had been wrong, maybe it wasn’t someone he knew.  Maybe it was just a person that had seen him standing there enjoying the sun – because that was all he was doing – and had decided to do the same thing.  

“I know you know I’m here,” the person said.  He — the voice was definitely male — sounded familiar too, though Ezra couldn’t quite put his finger on who it was.

He’d get it.  He just needed a few more words.  It wasn’t Kanan, and it wasn’t Zeb, he knew that much.  He could also rule out a good portion of the base population simply by the tone of voice the other person had used; just like the Force signature, a little irritated, like he thought he was being ignored.

Hobbie, maybe? Or Wedge? Or one of the other pilots, maybe, the ones he didn’t know so well.  That would explain why the voice wasn’t instantly familiar to him.

“And I saw you trying not to laugh at me,” the voice continued.  “I don’t see what’s so funny about me breathing in half the desert!”

It was Hobbie.  It had to be.  Maybe.  It  _sounded_  like Hobbie, anyway.  Not just the voice, the way he spoke, too.  

Only one way to find out.  He began to open his eyes to test his theory, but stopped before his lids lifted enough to show him any of the world, and clamped them closed again.  There  _wasn’t_  only one way.  Without even trying, he could think of two others.  He could keep him talking until the other person said something unmistakable, or he could just come out and just ask him who he was.  He wasn’t going to do that second one, it would draw too much attention to what he was doing, and maybe-Hobbie would ask the entirely reasonable question of why Ezra didn’t just open his eyes.  Or worse, he wouldn’t ask, he would wonder, and assume, but not dare to ask.

That still left the option of keeping him talking, and if it  _was_  Hobbie, that wasn’t going to be much of a problem.

“Ouch,” Hobbie complained.  “It hurts, by the way.  If you were wondering.  Thanks for all your sympathy.”

Ezra turned in his direction.  He was almost certain now.  He could have called him by name now, but something stopped him.  A niggling fear of making a fool of himself.  It might not be Hobbie.  And anyway, probably-Hobbie hadn’t commented on the fact that Ezra wasn’t looking at him.  Maybe he hadn’t even noticed, in which case, he wouldn’t even notice how impressive Ezra was being.

Anyway, it wasn’t impressive to recognize your friend, it was completely normal, and now that he thought about it, Ezra didn’t want to turn into some kind of novelty act being praised for the ability to do completely normal, everyday things.  That didn’t sound good at all.

“Hey, Ezra, you okay? What’s going on?”

The worried tone in Hobbie’s voice shook Ezra from his reverie, and he tried to think back to what had been said so far during their one-sided conversation.  “What hurts?” he asked.

“I just got an eyeful of… Wait, what are you doing?” Hobbie sounded suddenly confused, and the worried note hadn’t dropped from his voice; if anything, it had gotten stronger.

He had noticed, finally.  Well, if dust had blown into his eyes, he’d probably had them closed too, or had been too preoccupied with trying to fix it to notice what Ezra was doing.  Which just showed how sensible Ezra was being by keeping his eyes closed.

Not wanting to draw attention, Ezra bypassed the question.  He smirked, to show that it was a joke, or half a joke, anyway.  “Oh yeah, that does sound painful,” he told him.

Hobbie didn’t respond for a moment.  His feet sounded slightly on the ground and Ezra resist the urge to open his eyes and see how Hobbie had reacted to the comment.  He kept them closed because he didn’t want the same thing to happen to him,  _not_  because he was trying to work things out without seeing.  Definitely not that.

“Seriously,” Hobbie said.  “What are you doing?” His voice had dropped slightly, in both volume and pitch, like he didn’t want to be overheard.  He sounded like he knew exactly what he  _thought_  Ezra was doing, but that he wanted a confirmation to be sure.

Ezra shrugged noncommittally.  He still hadn’t gotten any kind of confirmation of who he was talking to; if he wasn’t going to get what he wanted, neither was Hobbie.  Probably-Hobbie.

“Not much,” he said, feigning nonchalance.  “Just standing around.”

“In the middle of a dust storm? That’s normal.”

Ezra shook his head.  “I’m not sure this really counts as a dust storm, Hobbie.  It’s a slightly windy day on a desert planet.”  He froze.  He hadn’t meant to say a name.  The urge to open his eyes and find out whether he had made a fool of himself was stopped by the gritty feeling of the sand caught in his eyelashes that would almost certainly fall into his eyes if he opened them in a hurry.  He raised his fingers to his eyes and brushed them gently, trying to clear the sand away.

There was a slight pause from Hobbie’s direction as he did, one that seemed to last for hours, before Hobbie laughed.  “Yeah, true.  I’ve been  _in_  a dust storm.  I mean, I was flying, as fast as I could trying to keep ahead of it so I could break atmosphere before it hit but still, yeah.  It was a  _bit_  more extreme than this.”

Ezra relaxed, and allowed himself a moment to savor his victory.  Even if Hobbie didn’t appear to have noticed.

As though in an attempt to prove him wrong, the wind picked up again suddenly, bringing with it another blast of sand and grit.

“On the other hand, it’s doing its best to qualify,” Hobbie said, when it had passed.

Ezra shrugged, as the wind died down to almost nothing again.

“So, where were you?” Hobbie asked.

Ezra frowned, confused.  “When?”

“We were supposed to meet up this morning,” Hobbie clarified.  “I figured something important must’ve come up and that you just forgot.  I didn’t realize it was as important as ‘standing around’.”

Suddenly, he remembered.  Ezra leaned his head back to knock against the wall with an audible thump.  They had been supposed to meet in their usual spot for more dokma investigation, but then of course, Hera had appeared and asked him to meet her on the Phantom for what he had  _thought_  was his triumphant return to active duty.  So much for that.  By the time he got back, well, he’d had other things on his mind.

“Sorry,” he said.  “Something did come up, I…” he didn’t want to talk about it.  “Sorry.”

Another pause from Hobbie.  Or a shrug, or an angry shake of his head.  “It’s fine.  It’s pretty exposed out there, I doubt we’d have stayed long.  I didn’t hang around, anyway.”

Ezra nodded.  Hobbie didn’t sound angry about it, at least.  A little hurt, maybe.  Maybe not.  Ezra reached out with the Force, trying to gauge it, but there was no strong emotion there to sense.  That was good, at least.

“Sorry,” he said again, because suddenly he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“So what were you doing?” Hobbie asked.  “Wedge said he saw the Phantom go up, was that you?”

Ezra hesitated for a second.  He didn’t want to talk about it, and he didn’t know how to communicate that to Hobbie without having to, well, talk about it.  He shook his head, and lied.  “Nah, that was just Hera.  I don’t know what she was doing.  I had to do some stuff with Kanan.”

“Right…” A long pause.  Ezra heard footsteps and for a moment wondered whether Hobbie was leaving.  No.  He could still sense his Force presence standing next to him, it must have been someone else walking past.  “So, are you going to open your eyes anytime soon?” Hobbie asked.

A stab of embarrassment hit Ezra hard.  He had known Hobbie had noticed; how could he not have, when Ezra had been facing him their whole conversation? Besides, when Hobbie had asked him what he was doing, it had been obvious he had meant the whole thing; the standing around in the middle of the base in the wind for no obvious reason,  _and_  the fact that he hadn’t opened his eyes.  Ezra turned away instinctively, hiding his face, like that would make a difference.  “Wasn’t planning on it, no.”

“Right,” Hobbie said again.  He shuffled his feet a little.  “Did Kanan tell you to…” he stopped, cleared his throat nervously, and shuffled his feet a little more.  “Bad hangover?” he asked instead.  “I knew I shouldn’t have introduced you to alcohol.  What have I  _done_?”

“No, I’m just…” Ezra hesitated.  The lie he was telling himself would sound ridiculous if he said it out loud, and it was obvious that Hobbie didn’t believe what  _he_  was suggesting either, he was giving him another excuse he could use.  Suddenly grateful, he grabbed hold of the excuse hard.  “Yeah, that’s it,” he agreed, grimacing and raising a hand to his temple like he was nursing a sore head.   “I overdid it a bit last night.  Don’t tell Kanan.”

Hobbie laughed.  “So, that means I can tell Captain Syndulla, right?”

“If you want out of the dokma thing, sure, go right ahead,” Ezra told him, grinning.  He wasn’t serious, or course.  But he was fairly sure that Hobbie wasn’t either.

He sensed Hobbie abruptly go very still, and a thrill of panic through the Force.  For a moment, half a second, maybe less, he thought Hobbie had believed it was a genuine threat, then he sensed a second presence nearby.  He, too, froze in panic, then desperately tried to fix the mistake.  “I mean the… thing where we go to the races, and just… uh…” he couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound ridiculous, “…bet on stuff…” he finished.

Hobbie laughed out loud, and elbowed Ezra in the arm.  “Relax, she’s gone, and I don’t think she heard you,” he said.

Ezra didn’t relax.  That had been stupid.  Just because he hadn’t noticed anybody else around, didn’t mean they weren’t there.  That was something he needed to remember, definitely.  “Who was it?” he asked.

“I don’t know her, I think she’s new,” Hobbie told him.  “I’ve never seen her at the races, anyway, she probably wouldn’t have known what you were talking about if she had heard.  Anyway, you didn’t actually say what the ‘thing’ was.”

“But she didn’t hear, right?” Ezra pressed.

Hobbie didn’t respond.

“Hobbie, she didn’t, right? You’re sure?” he asked, more insistently.  He couldn’t believe he had been that stupid.

“Sorry,” Hobbie said.  “I shook my head.  I forgot you were, uh… hung over.  No, she didn’t hear.”

Ezra relaxed.  At least his stupidity hadn’t cost them anything.  He’d been lucky, the nearby person could easily have been one of engineers that ran the race, and with his recent win, they could have put two and two together.  They wouldn’t have been able to  _prove_  anything, but just a bit of suspicion would have been enough.

“Sorry,” Hobbie said again.  “It’s kinda weird weird talking to someone that… uh…” he tailed off and fell into silence, his embarrassment was so obvious through the Force that Ezra could almost feel the blush that Hobbie was almost definitely wearing.  “Sorry,” Hobbie said again.

Ezra shrugged.  He wasn’t sure exactly what Hobbie had been about to say.  Someone that wasn’t looking at you; someone with their eyes closed; someone ‘hung over’.  It didn’t matter, Ezra knew exactly how it felt.  

“You get used to it,” he said.  He had, eventually, with Kanan.  He still didn’t  _like_  it, he never would, but he had gotten used to it.  And soon it wouldn’t be an issue for him anyway.

Hobbie sighed.  “I guess you’re not the only idiot around here.” He paused again.

He seemed to pause a lot.  Ezra wondered whether that was normal; something that everybody did that he just hadn’t noticed before because normally he would be able to see what they were doing when they weren’t speaking, or whether it was just a Hobbie thing.  Or whether it was just a Hobbie thing right now, because he felt weird about what was going on and was desperately trying to think of things to talk about.

“Hey, who are you calling an idiot?” Ezra said, and forced himself to smile as he filled the silence.  It was the least he could do, he had been in Hobbie’s position before now, with Kanan, and more than once, he had chosen to end the awkwardness by leaving, and sometimes not coming back for days at a time.

Hobbie was smiling too as he replied, Ezra could easily hear it in his voice.  “I dunno, maybe the guy who nearly spilled our secrets all over the base.  Unless you see another idiot around here?”

Ezra shook his head.  “Not right now, no.”

“Right.” Hobbie sighed, and there was a light thumping sound as he leaned heavily against the wall.  “I guess that’s gonna happen when you’re hung over, right? What’s it like, are you doing okay?”

Ezra frowned, not sure how to respond to that.  It wasn’t good, but it was made tolerable by the fact that it was optional, he could open his eyes whenever he wanted.  He didn’t want to discuss it.

“Right,” Hobbie said, as though Ezra had answered.  “Stupid question?”

Yes, but actually Ezra would rather Hobbie ask than avoid him or fall into awkward silence.  Apparently, Hobbie was better at this kind of thing than Ezra had been.  Of course, Hobbie had no reason to feel responsible, that had to make a big difference.

“No.  It’s…” he didn’t know how to answer, but he had to say something, or Hobbie wouldn’t ask again, and he realized now that that wasn’t what he wanted.  “It’s strange,” he said.  “Not… good.  But I think I could get used to it, eventually.” He was surprised to realize that that wasn’t a lie.  Of course, getting used to something didn’t mean liking it, or even accepting it, it just meant finding a way to live with it.  And eventually was a very long time.  “Or I could just stop drinking,” he said with a smile.

Silence from Hobbie, and confusion communicated through the Force, then a quiet laugh.  “Right, because you’re hung over,” he said, unnecessarily.

“I’m also enjoying the sun,” Ezra added, “and having my eyes closed helps keep the dust out of them, so maybe you should try it.”

Hobbie laughed again; it sounded nervous, but genuine.  “Actually, I just was thinking of getting out of the wind instead,” he said.  “I haven’t eaten yet, and I can smell food.  Do you wanna… Oh, but with your hangover, I don’t know if you want… uh…”

Ezra wasn’t sure exactly what Hobbie was asking, but he got the distinct impression that he was trying not to have to lead him to the commissary and help him pick out something to eat.  Ezra didn’t blame him, and it wasn’t something he was going to allow to happen either.  Hobbie seemed to think that Ezra was enjoying the sun on Kanan’s instructions, rather than for himself.  He probably thought he had to keep doing it for a set amount of time.

That was going to happen eventually, Ezra supposed.  But he didn’t think he would get off as lightly as this.  Standing around in the middle of the base wasn’t much of a challenge; there would be a lot more that he needed to learn.  The thought of it filled him with a mild sense of dread.

He gave his eyelids a quick brush with his fingertips, removing any residual dust and sand that had settled there, then opened his eyes.  The world came back into what passed for focus recently, and he felt himself release a tension that he hadn’t even realized he was carrying.  He felt a little like he had given in, but he hadn’t, he couldn’t have expected himself to enjoy the sun forever.  Anyway, he had to eat.

There was nobody around them at the moment.  Hobbie was standing directly to his left, leaning against the wall in almost exactly the pose that Ezra had imagined.  Still, it was good to see it.  It was good to see anything.  

“I guess the hangover wore off,” he said.

Hobbie smiled a little hesitantly.  “That’s good,” he said.  “How long did you have it for?”

Ezra shrugged.  It hadn’t been long.  It had probably felt like a lot longer than it was.  “Long enough to know I’d rather not have one,” he said.  He grimaced, embarrassed, and sensed the same emotion from Hobbie.  He hadn’t meant to say that.  It was true, but he hadn’t meant to say it.

It didn’t matter.  It wasn’t anything Hobbie didn’t already know.  Nobody was stupid enough to think he  _wanted_  to… that.  But he didn’t have any choice.  It wasn’t really a hangover, and there was nothing that he could do to avoid or stop it.  As much as he didn’t want pity, he wasn’t going to pretend to be happy about it.  “Come on,” he said quickly, before Hobbie could apologize again.  “Let’s go eat before everything’s gone.”

He turned and walked away as quickly as he could, in the direction of the commissary.  He didn’t turn to look back at Hobbie; he didn’t want to see sympathy or worse, pity, in his face.  It might not have been there, he didn’t sense it through the Force, but he knew how  _he_  would have reacted.  Then again, as he had already realized, Hobbie was different to him.

Maybe he just didn’t care?

That wasn’t it, but even if he was, it would still be better.

“Hey, wait for me!” Behind him, he heard Hobbie jog a few steps to catch up to him.  He fell into pace beside him, and when Ezra forced himself to sneak a look, all he saw was his friend.

**Author's Note:**

> [Please also check out this awesome piece of artwork for the series, by Lorna-ka, commissioned by Pom_rania](http://pomrania.tumblr.com/post/167811474319/i-got-my-commission-from-lorna-ka-and-it-is-deep)


End file.
